Polestar springs a surprise on the Goodwood crowds, the new Concept BST
The Polestar Concept BST imagines a high-performance variant of the EV maker’s upcoming droptop flagship model
This is the dramatic Polestar Concept BST, a new experimental high-performance design that bolsters the top end of the EV maker’s prospective line-up. The concept, which is making its global debut at the UK’s Goodwood Festival of Speed in July 2024, will be joined by the newly released Polestar 3 and the forthcoming Polestar 4, capping a period of remarkable growth for the company.
The company is also showing its Polestar 6 Concept and giving it a run up Goodwood’s famous hillclimb course, a moment that’ll be the electric roadster concept’s dynamic debut. Polestar Concept BST takes the elegant drop-top looks of the Polestar 6 and amps up the aggression with a much wider track and vast rear wing.
Polestar Concept BST: a Goodwood tease
There are also hugely flared wheelarches, 22in wheels and a deeply vented front bonnet, across which the ‘6’ logo is subtly but firmly emblazoned. ‘Now we are a brand with three models in production it’s great to see them here together for the first time at a global event,’ says Thomas Ingenlath, CEO of Polestar.
‘Goodwood Festival of Speed is full of the most exciting cars and the most enthusiastic crowds,’ Ingenlath continues, ‘so it’s the perfect place for us to tease our Polestar Concept BST.’ Describing the concept as a ‘demonstration of how far we can push our performance brand’, the design hints at how Polestar might develop its own performance sub-brand or distinct line of higher output models in the future, as first seen in the recent Polestar 2 BST Edition 230.
The Polestar name originally started out as a Volvo sub-brand, but as the other company (a former parent, then sister, then distant relative) increasingly focused on simplicity, space and elegance, the new Polestar brand found it had fresh space in the growing EV market.
‘BST is Polestar turned up to 11 if you will,’ Ingenlath says, making a play for the likes of Porsche, Audi and even Lucid for a big slice of the prestigious high power, high tech electric car sector. Polestars 5 and 6 are still a few years out, with both Polestar 3 and Polestar 4 are available to order and the excellent Polestar 2 still occupying a niche of its own.
Another niche that the company can claim is as battery supplier to Candela’s C-8 Polestar Edition electric hydrofoil. This dramatic watercraft was also on standby to give select guest a short voyage just a few miles from the rolling car-festooned hills of Goodwood.
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For details of Polestar Test Drives, visit Polestar.com
Jonathan Bell has written for Wallpaper* magazine since 1999, covering everything from architecture and transport design to books, tech and graphic design. He is now the magazine’s Transport and Technology Editor. Jonathan has written and edited 15 books, including Concept Car Design, 21st Century House, and The New Modern House. He is also the host of Wallpaper’s first podcast.
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